In May, the state Board of Education voted to allow each public college to decide whether to arm its police department. That came on the heels of an April 4 incident in which URI’s Kingston campus was shut down following a report of someone with a gun in the Chafee Social Science Center. (There was no gunman.)

The URI president has publicly expressed his support for arming campus police but wants to hear from the community.

“Our desire is to have an informed dialogue and to assist our community in developing a thorough understanding of the issue and its implications,” President David M. Dooley said in a statement.

No final decision will be made until he and the administration assess the public comments.

Arming campus police has met with strong opposition from faculty members, who are distressed at the prospect of an armed force dealing with campus infractions, from fights to public intoxication.